|
|
AG's FAQ: Answers to some commonly asked IU related questions
Most of this is copied and pasted from emails I sent in the past to answer queries from folks coming to the US for graduate studies, especially ones coming from India. In addition to this, I recommend you also check:
Yogesh's 'guide' to living in B'town.
- Is there a mailing list for Indian graduate students that I can subscribe to?
- Any suggestions on places to stay (temporarily) at Bloomington for 2-3 days? Are there hotels close to university?
- How hard is it find accomdation in B'town?
- I still would like to exploring housing options (before I arrive in Bloomington).. Where do I start?
Or will I still be able to find an apartment if I arrive in mid-August?
- Will I need to pay an advance if I lease a house from India through the web?
- Is it better to stay off-campus?
- How much is the normal cost-of-living?
- I want to open a bank account, any recommendations on which bank(s) to
consider?
- How can I travel from Chicago to Bloomington? What are my options?
- How can I know the exact fees for MS course in CS? The website
- Do vegetarians find it a problem living in apartments? (Yes, someone asked me this, I swear!)
- I believe text books are very expensive in the US..keeping that in mind, what
books should I bring from India?
- Which topics did you particularly find difficult to handle and what
basic topics can I come prepared with before I join the program
- Could you could share some personal experience about the bioinformatics program and
IUB in general (is it worth it)?
-
Is there a mailing list for Indian graduate students that I can subscribe to?
Yes, subscribe to yahoogroup named "iubdesis".
- Any suggestions on places to stay (temporarily) at Bloomington for 2-3 days?
Are there hotels close to university?
You could try emailing the yahoo group mentioned in
above and ask if someone will be able
accomodate you at their place.
Or you could try staying in Eigenmann hall -- I believe they allow incoming students to stay for 2 nights for
$25 a night. Business guests, I believe, stay at the
IMU.
The following URL has information on other hotel/motel type places
that you could stay.
PS: If you are an incoming CS/Economics/Chemistry/
Physics student, you may be better off staying with who lives closer to
the Lindley Hall area, so that eventually shifting stuff to your
apartment would be easier.
-
How hard is it find accomdation in B'town?
Finding accomdation is usually no big deal; just come here and you
should be able to find an apartment. If you plan to stay off-campus, then
try to arrive on a sensible date that's close to when your lease begins
(i.e avoid coming 7-14 days in advance unless you have a compelling
reason -- I write this because it's happened before).
-
I still would like to exploring housing options (before I arrive in Bloomington).. Where do I start?
Or will I still be able to find an apartment if I arrive in mid-August?
My guess is, you should be able to find an apartment and sign a lease
after you get here. Also, you could be room-mates with someone who's
already signed a lease or has decided the place they want to live.
Find out if there is a yahoogroup or something for people coming to IUB
for the semester you're arriving.
If you'd still like to get information about apartments in Bloomington,
here are a few weblinks you may find useful..
If you are going to join Computer Science, then you'd want to stay on
the south west side of campus-- say within a mile from Lindley Hall -
150 S Woodlawn Avenue; do a mapquest.com check if you like!
Few more links:
PS:I wrote this in a note to someone after considerable prodding :-)
Just to be more specific, if I were you (and joining CS/Economics/Chemistry/Physics)...I'd live somewhere in the
following streets: S.Henderson, S.Dunn, S.Grant, S.Lincoln, S.Fess,
S.Woodlawn between 1st street and 7th (or probably 10th street). I may
have missed smaller streets in between. Just my personal opinion. All
this changes if you decide/plan to buy a car after arriving.
-
Will I need to pay an advance if I lease a house from India through the web?
You'll need to ask the particular property management company. Usually, you pay 1/2 or 1 month's rent as advance
when you sign a lease.
-
Is it better to stay off-campus?
A lot of grad students (esp from India) stay off-campus; there are plenty of apartments
surrounding various ends of the IU campus. You can ride buses from certain points to others / ride bikes when
it's warm (or rather not too cold). Else walking is the answer. There are a
couple of on-campus apts which don't give a bad deal either, but for these
you will need to apply real early. I am not the best person to
comment on this, since I always lived off-campus as a student.
-
How much is the normal cost-of-living?
Monthly expenditure if you live in off-campus apts. -- again, there are
a couple of on-campus apts similar in cost, but extremely hard to get
into -- will range from $350 to $750 depending on how many people you
stay with, how often you do long distance phone calls (this point is
almost obsolete since cell phones are fairly cheap), how often you eat
out, etc. Rent for a 2 bedroom apartment is usually $500-700 per apt.
Phone could be $25 (plus long distance $0-100 if you are reasonably
sane, more if you're not!).
Groceries could be $100-200 or less. Electricity could be $50 on an
average (depending on whether you use the AC a lot in summer and if you
have gas or electric heating in winter). Then you have other expenses
-- eating out, high speed internet, yada yada..
-
I want to open a bank a/c, any recommendations on which bank(s)
toconsider?
Most students get a bank account at IUCU; Bank One
also offers free checking these days, I think; but I suspect they have
more stringent requirements before you open an account, for example
social security number.
-
How can I travel from Chicago to Bloomington? What are my options?
It's a 4-hr drive if you'd like to rent a car from Chicago (and can legally drive!). Otherwise you can
take the silly 1-hr flight into Indy and a shuttle down to Bloomington.
-
How much tuition can I expect to pay per semester/year (say, for a Masters in CS degree)?
When I join the university, do I need to pay a year's tution fee or
a semester's tution fee upfront?
Tuition is on a per-semester basis and depends on the number of credits you
take plus some mandatory charges (rather annoying at times) including
insurance. I'd suspect you'll take 9 (or 12) credits/semester. Check this
link out, you should be able to do the math.
http://www.indiana.edu/~blbursar/body/rates/rates_and_policies.php
Immigration has some ridiculous written as well as unwritten rules - you
might want to check on that. AFAIK, they expect you to be able to show
funds for a year's tuition and living, but that may have changed.
-
Do vegetarians find it a problem living in apartments? (Yes, someone asked me this, I swear!)
Vegetarianism is something you need to talk about to whoever you
live with (if you live with room mates). You probably won't be staying in
those dorms in any case, so don't worry about that.
-
I believe text books are very expensive in the US..keeping that in mind, what
books should I bring from India?
It all depends on the path you plan to take (if you already have one planned) within your program...
what classes you take, what book does a particular professor use, and so forth. The best thing to do
is probably check out course webpages from prior semesters and see what text book(s) was used.
If you are going to join Computer Science, it might be worth-while bringing the standard
titles, if not for anything else at least for reference: Silberschatz & Galvin for Operating Systems,
Peterson &and Davie for Computer Networks, and so forth. (Don't have a list
off the top of my head, will try to add more content whenever...)
Bioinformatics Program related
-
Which topics did you particularly find difficult to handle and what
basic topics can I come prepared with before I join the program (as I
have about 4 months left) especially in biology as similar to you I also
come from a computer science background in engineering thus lacking
advanced biology knowledge.
Actually there is no single answer to this. In terms of how much
you know (or don't) learning basic molecular biology would be very useful
-- DNA--->proteins and all the associated good stuff -- metabolism,
regulation, etc. I can't list topics off my mind right now, but can try if
you want me to.
From a computer science point of view, you will be required to do
lot of scripting - so unix shell scripting/perl/python scripting
experience would help. Other programming lang expr (Java, C, C++, etc)
would also be useful.
Also if you are interested in more chemistry, then there is lot of
modelling work going on; you might wanna learn the basics, but I am not
competent to comment on that since I am miles away from such stuff.
-
Could you could share some personal experience about the bioinformatics program and
IUB in general (is it worth it)?
Well, I was pretty much in computer science for 2 years before I
decided to get a bioinformatics major as well. I can tell you Bloomington
is a splendid place to go to school. AFA informatics goes, it's a fairly
new program and is still in its formative years. So things are not
well-settled in terms of curriculum, who teaches what, etc. I suspect,
it would be much better as time progresses.
|
